NGM applies to Takeovers Panel

Uranium miner
NGM Resources
has applied to the Takeovers Panel after Paladin Energy withdrew its takeover bid for the company on the grounds of a defeating condition being met.

NGM submitted that the defeating conditions can’t be relied on by Paladin and do not comply with s629 of the Corporations Act 2001, which deals with the grounds for which defeating conditions may be used.

Paladin notified the Australian Securities Exchange that its off-market scrip offer would lapse at the end of the offer period on October 8 due to terrorist activity in Niger that would severely inhibit NGM from safely accessing its resource tenements.

“Paladin has failed to properly inform the market about [the conditions], and the conditions have not ‘become incapable of being fulfilled’," NGM told the panel.

Earlier this month seven employees of French uranium company Areva were abducted in Niger’s uranium mining region.

“As a consequence of these recent developments in Niger, the conditions of the offer ... are no longer capable of being fulfilled," Paladin’s ASX statement said.

NGM is calling for the panel to recognise that the defeating conditions contravene s629 or are void and seeks a final order that Paladin not extend its takeover bid beyond October 8, 2010 if the 90 per cent minimum acceptance condition to its takeover bid has been satisfied or waived prior to that time.